EPA Administrator Michael Regan, proper, speaks to reporters in November 2021 on the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant, a Ridgeland, Miss.-based facility close to Jackson, Miss., about longstanding water points which have plagued the town.

Rogelio V. Solis/AP

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Rogelio V. Solis/AP

EPA Administrator Michael Regan, proper, speaks to reporters in November 2021 on the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant, a Ridgeland, Miss.-based facility close to Jackson, Miss., about longstanding water points which have plagued the town.

Rogelio V. Solis/AP

A Mississippi environmental regulator has denied claims that the state company he leads discriminated towards the capital metropolis of Jackson in its distribution of federal funds for wastewater remedy.

In a not too long ago unearthed letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality Executive Director Christopher Wells wrote that the NAACP has “failed to allege a single fact to support” its argument that the company discriminated towards Jackson. He mentioned he believed the continued civil rights investigation into the matter was politically motivated.

“Jackson received a loan for every completed application it submitted,” Wells wrote. “And, because the amount of the loan is based on the cost of the project, no loans were reduced for any reason that could be considered discriminatory.”

Disruptions to Jackson’s water providers have ailed the town for years, and its system practically collapsed in late August after heavy rainfall exacerbated issues on the metropolis’s predominant water remedy plant. Most of Jackson misplaced operating water for a number of days, and other people needed to wait in strains for water to drink, cook dinner, bathe and flush bogs.

Wells’ Dec. 16 letter was despatched virtually three months after the NAACP filed a federal grievance underneath Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids federal fund recipients from discriminating on the premise of race or nationwide origin. The grievance mentioned that Mississippi officers “all but assured” a ingesting water calamity by depriving Jackson of badly wanted funds to improve its infrastructure.

Over 25 years, Jackson acquired funds from an vital federal program solely 3 times, the NAACP mentioned. When Jackson tried to fund enhancements itself, these efforts have been repeatedly blocked by state political leaders, in keeping with the grievance.

The EPA introduced on Oct. 20 that it was investigating whether or not Mississippi state businesses discriminated towards the state’s majority-Black capital metropolis by refusing to fund enhancements to the water system. EPA Administrator Michael Regan has visited Jackson a number of occasions and has mentioned “longstanding discrimination” has contributed to the decline of the town’s water system.

The federal company might withhold cash from Mississippi if it finds wrongdoing — probably tens of millions of {dollars}. If the state businesses do not cooperate with the investigation, the EPA might refer the case to the Department of Justice.

In his letter, Wells wrote that alleged Title VI violations are “based on unarticulated and evolving standards” and would run “counter to this nation’s system of federalism,” WLBT-TV reported.

Wells wrote that the EPA investigation is “part and parcel of a political effort to divert attention away from the city of Jackson’s own failures.” He contends that Jackson’s water woes are outcomes of metropolis mismanagement somewhat than discrimination by the state.

The EPA had been conscious of Jackson’s water issues for years, together with when the town entered right into a consent decree with the company in 2012 after it was cited for violating the Clean Water Act, Wells wrote.

Competing claims over the reason for the capital metropolis’s water bother has ignited rigidity between native officers in Jackson, a Democratic stronghold, and Mississippi’s Republican state leaders.

The AP reported in September that when Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves was the state treasurer in 2011, he touted his personal observe document of fiscal conservatism by citing his opposition to spending state cash for water and sewer initiatives in Jackson. The EPA is just not investigating Reeves.

Ahead of the water disaster final summer season, folks in Jackson had been suggested to boil water earlier than consuming it as a result of well being officers obtained samples that confirmed the water might be harmful to devour. That advisory remained in place till mid-September.

The issues returned once more throughout Christmas weekend when frigid climate triggered water strains to interrupt and the town’s water distribution system failed to provide sufficient strain. Boil water notices in some metropolis neighborhoods remained in place till Jan. 7.

Jackson is ready to obtain practically $800 million in federal funds for its water system, the majority of which comes from the $1.7 trillion spending invoice that Congress handed in December.